Children no longer walk on the path of innocence. The youth, caught up in worldly pastimes, no longer come before thy altar to ask thy maternal blessings; nor do they seek the light of thy gaze to dissipate the shadows of doubt the world instills unceasingly.

Mothers are forgetting that the home is the first school where good is taught, and that they are the first teachers … Family life today has deteriorated, and the sound of the call to prayer is rarely heard.

In the schools there is no prayer, nor are thy grandeurs sung. In the home, few still believe in Holy Providence which has counted all the hairs on our heads and the sufferings of our hearts, and few have recourse to the merciful assistance of thy maternal heart.

In these hours our Country is the poor traveler of the Gospel who fell into the hands of thieves, riddled with wounds that are almost mortal, without the relief of any human hope.

My sweet Mother, take care of these abandoned children who are lost because they have nothing in life. Protect the youth so that these tender plants are not swallowed up in the poisonous muck of vice. Teach mothers the divine gift of being mothers and their duty to model the hearts of their children at the cost of any sacrifice, of saving them with the mysterious supplications of their tears.

If you do not come to the assistance of this agonizing Country, the remnants of Christendom will disappear. Your heart is an abyss of ineffable tenderness. Let a drop of balm fall upon its wounds and it will live. Amen.

From a holy card distributed by the Convent of the Conceptionist Sisters in Quito.